May 24 - Jerry Fielding begins recording his score for Shirts/Skins (1973)
May 24 - Duke Ellington died (1974)
May 25 - Pierre Bachelet born (1944)
May 25 - Star Wars released in theaters (1977)
May 25 - Alien released in theaters (1979)
May 26 - Miles Davis born (1926)
May 26 - William Bolcom born (1938)
May 26 - Nicola Piovani born (1946)
May 26 - Howard Goodall born (1958)
May 26 - Jerry Goldsmith begins recording his score for The Satan Bug (1964)
May 26 - Earle Hagen died (2008)
May 28 - Vertigo is released in theaters (1958)
May 29 - Erich Wolfgang Korngold born (1897)
May 29 - Masaru Sato born (1928)
May 29 - Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov born (1936)
May 29 - David McHugh born (1941)
May 29 - Danny Elfman born (1953)
May 29 - Ed Alton born (1955)
May 29 - J.J. Johnson begins recording his score for Cleopatra Jones (1973)

DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?

FRANCES HA - Music Supervisor: George Drakoulias

"Together they have created an American independent film (shot in luminous black and white by Sam Levy) that feels off the cuff but is in fact exactly made by a filmmaker in total control of his resources. With a soundtrack that makes liberal use of music from Georges Delerue, a frequent Francois Truffaut collaborator, it's got the energy and verve of the French New Wave but remains unmistakably itself."

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"Who nowadays makes plush-looking feature films in black-and-white? Well, Noah Baumbach does, and if you consider that his 'Frances Ha' lavishes its gorgeous monochromes on contemporary New York and the luminous countenance of Greta Gerwig (his star, current g.f. and co-writer), you might suspect that Baumbach’s latest owes more than a tiny debt to Woody Allen’s 'Manhattan.' If you also factor in that the film is full of nods to the French New Wave, including an obnoxious overuse of classic scores by Georges Delerue, you might deduce that Baumbach’s reverential hyper-cinephilia has gotten the better of him again. And you would be right. But only to a point."

Godfrey Cheshire, Chicago Sun-Times

"But 'Frances Ha,' Mr. Baumbach’s least overtly autobiographical film as a director, is not primarily an act of generational portraiture, on his part or Ms. Gerwig’s. It is entirely caught up in the individuality of its heroine, who is viewed with affectionate detachment, and in the details of her environment, which are given a romantic lift by Sam Levy’s supple, shadowy monochrome cinematography and a musical soundtrack borrowed mostly from the great French film composer Georges Delerue. "

A.O. Scott, New York Times

"After a series of hate letters to humankind, Noah Baumbach has fashioned an ode to his girlfriend Greta Gerwig’s galumphing adorableness (they co-wrote the script). 'Frances Ha' is black-and-white and has a French New Wave gloss, along with a soundtrack that quotes Georges Delerue’s theme from 'King of Hearts.' (It cranks up when Baumbach needs enchantment.)"

David Edelstein, New York

"This is 'Girls' territory, but Baumbach's Truffaut-inflected New York, shot in black and white with a groovy score featuring Georges Delerue (veteran composer of the French New Wave) is a more elegant if less upscale place in which to have your fantasies demolished."

Ella Taylor, NPR

"With its homages to modern French classics, music cues from Truffaut films, and a veritable Paris holiday in the middle, Noah Baumbach’s new film -- which he co-wrote with its star, Greta Gerwig -- links the already classic themes and moods of New York independent filmmaking to those of the New Wave and its successors."

Richard Brody, New Yorker

"The intermittent presence of Adam Driver as a downtown artist and womanizer merely drives home the film’s passing similarity to Lena Dunham’s HBO series 'Girls,' both in milieu and the occasionally blunt dialogue describing weird and/or awkward sex. But the style and tone are entirely different. Baumbach shoots and cuts in a fleet, exhilarating manner that reminds of nothing less than the Godard of 'Band of Outsiders' or the Truffaut of 'Shoot the Piano Player,' a connection explicitly and sometimes movingly underscored by his extensive use of excerpts from 1960s French film scores composed by the great Georges Delerue. The director mixes moods with a playfulness that is both brazen and carefree and yet precisely modulated, yielding results that amplify the specific content of the screenplay."

"The film isn’t perfect. Michael Giacchino’s score works overtime to let us know that Harrison is eeeeevil."

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s noble score and cool effects, this go-all-out sequel really does try to go where no one has gone before."

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

"Filmmakers have been cagey about exactly who Cumberbatch is playing, and I'm fine with respecting that, so I'll just say the usual suspects return in 'Into Darkness' -- the Federation, Klingons -- but that Cumberbatch's steely intelligence and perfect diction make his pseudonymous John Harrison feel more potent than all the rest of them put together. The movie is so freaked out by Cumberbatch that he gets ominous orchestral music even before he utters a word."

Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Adding the cherry to the top of this cinematic sundae, composer Michael Giacchino’s soaring score once again revives Alexander Courage’s immortal 'Trek' theme for the closing credits."

Scott Foundas, Variety

WHAT MAISIE KNEW - Nick Urata

"'What Maisie Knew' lays waste to the comforting dogma that children are naturally resilient, and that our casual, unthinking cruelty to them can be answered by guilty and belated displays of affection. It accomplishes this not by means of melodrama, but by a mixture of understatement and thriller-worthy suspense. Every Hollywood hack knows that nothing grabs an audience’s emotions like a child in peril, and the directors make expert use of this wisdom, deploying Nick Urata’s score and sly tricks of framing and focus to create a mood of disorientation and dread. What Maisie learns is that nobody will protect her."

A.O. Scott, New York Times

"If Aprile’s Maisie seems a bit too angelic, this remarkable young actress nonetheless manages to convey in every closeup the painful, premature knowledge described by the title. Given the emotional acuity of the perf, the film need not have relied so heavily on Nick Urata’s lush score; a number of scenes would play more effectively sans accompaniment."